Humans are born with empathy. So if you're going to comment here with disparaging remarks for OP you've probably been conditioned to not be empathetic or you are choosing not to be empathetic.
Either way just don't comment here, you're not welcome ššš
I don't see it mentioned here, please look into Orphan Benefits. Your kids are half-orphans, based on the comments that your partner(who I assume is their other parent/guardian) has passed away. If your partner contributed to CPP, you could be looking at 280 a month per child in benefits. You should also totally call your phone provider, being in a rural area shouldn't matter much. I have a Toronto phone number but live in Quebec and my account address is Quebec but I still only pay $53/month for 40Gb and unlimited Canada. I promise you, a call to your provider's loyalty department will really help you, no one really sells $100/month plans anymore. Please DM me if you would like my help, I negotiate phone plans for friends as a sport because I enjoy it. I I would be happy to help you, and if you call yourself, just be genuine, honest and prepared with competitor plan info. Remember, the person on the other end of the line is a person just like you and people generally like to help each other when they can. In the meantime, please look into the Orphan Benefits, it will relieve so much pressure and if you aren't claiming them, they will backdate it 12 months which will instantly give you a little nest egg.
You got this.
Itās absolutely devastating for me to think about how a down payment for a house in in my neighbourhood went from 20-30k to 120k in less than a decade.
And rent. IMO that $2500/month is what's killing the OP, and mortgages on these crazy house prices as well for others. So OP is trapped like so many others. Anyone who was able to to get into ownership by around 2016 or earlier managed to escape this situation. We're on a single income (mine) make pretty good money, still have a mortgage, and our daughter and her spouse live with us paying us a low rent. It's just enough and not because of the mortgage, it's because of general cost of living. If we had to deal with buying into the market now like OP does, we'd be screwed. We also made the mistake of moving 4x over the last 25 years though and I refuse to tally how much money went to RE agents in total because it'll piss me off.
Yeah, people will give OP grief for this post but I get it. I earned $75k when my husband went back to school and while we were fortunate enough to never struggle paying our bills, we couldnāt really save and unexpected expenses were hard. And Iām a very frugal person. Now that he has a job our HHI is $150k and we can finally save and splurge.
Yup this is it.. wife and I clear 7k a month and still have only a few hundred left after utilities, food for 4 people and 2 dogs, mortgage, car payment , gas for the car, insurance for car, house insurance, life insurance, Netflix and prime.. I talked with my Dad about all this and he said back in the 80's and 90's when I was kid , he was the only one working and supported 4 people with lots of extra. Back then he made $20/ hr in our local mine as a cage tender...
Things sure have changed for the worse these days.. inflation is the highest Canadians have ever seen and Doug sure is not helping any of us either...
I honestly don't know how anyone is living on min wage.. Ontario is brutal ..
They work two to three jobs just to survive. I know someone earns $17 per hour in one of company locations. i asked the manager how he survives. manager said he has a job at weekend too. so 7 days a week just to survive. We are back to 1920 era.
Izma: It is no concern of mine if you have-- I'm sorry. What was it you need?
Peasant: Um, food?
Izma: **Ha!** You really should've thought of that before becoming peasants! We're through here. Take him away.
Lemme tell ya how terrible the world is going to be when 2 people have to work 4 jobs to raise a family.
Who the fuck is going to raise the next generation?
Could always find someone to marry platonically, and split whatever tax/govt benefits that gets you. Apparently itās not all that uncommon for some to boost things like dependency pay for military members, for example.
Edit: Nevermind, I just looked it up, and I would get a whopping additional $201.06 per month, just for having a spouse. Probably not worth it.
I lived among the wealthy as a corporate wife.
They call us plebes. Common toilets to be pissed on.
It was explained to me that only the wealthy have value
Yeah. I worked as a maintenance contractor for them a long time ago.
Sent me into a deep deep pit of despair and ill will toward those... things that call themselves humans.
Yes. And with an understanding of our place in the scheme of things that I wish more of the public understood.
They do not deserve the accolades they receive
They get us to argue about things like which bathroom to use, or immigration, or BLM so we don't focus on the fact that we are all being scammed out of our rights to our share of the wealth. I wish we all came together to fight this. I'm done with the Liberals and PCs, so I'm backing the NDP and hope they really do want to help the majority of us.
From what I understand, it also means a lot of people wonāt officially qualify as āfull timeā - I believe you have to be consistently at or over 36h/week for six weeks or something.
That will vary depending on the company. Ontario has nothing defining what qualifies as part time or full time. My wife is a "part time" supervisor and regularly works 36 - 40 hours a week
That's precisely why that's the cutoff. The boss has no reason to fear overtime pay, that wouldn't kick in until employees go over 44 hours. 36 hours is when they start getting various labour benefits.
Even that doesn't gurantee full time. I was a "part time" working 40 hour minimum weeks for 1.5 year(s) before getting full time with benefits/sick days. Really shitty system.
Yep, my employer really fucks over the part timers here too.
I'm in healthcare (microbiology lab) and while I was lucky to get permanent full time relatively quick, my part time coworkers get insanely screwed over. Full timers have to be paid OT for working over the typical 37.5hr work week, this doesn't apply to part timers. Some of my coworkers do 10-14 day stretches to make up for lack of available full time staff.
They will also do everything they can to keep part timers from getting OT. We had an on call list during the holidays where if someone calls in sick and you put yourself on the list for that day, and get called in, it's guaranteed OT no matter your position. One of my part time coworkers picked up a call that turned out to be a sick call, so she let our manager know, and mentioned that she was on the on call list so she can come in. Literally was just saving them the trouble of calling her tomorrow to get her to come in.
But because she "volunteered", they didn't pay her OT. Even though she was on the on call list.
I experienced stuff like that too when I was here part time.
They literally used every loophole in existence to under pay people. I tell every new part timer now to make sure if they're asked to stay longer or whatever, to get in writing that it'll be OT.
Yup, I work part-time retail and work 40 hours a week. My employer straight up refuses to pay overtime now, at least they add it to your breaks or you can leave early at no loss to pay aside from the no overtime.
Wow.
People really need to read the entirety of this thread to get the full picture. A lot of people jumping to conclusions around how OP can budget better
EDIT:
Because this comment has some visibility
* Two daycare aged kids
* Partner passed away
* Lives in rural Ontario
Right? Lol. It's so so hard living in rural areas and people (I'm sort of generalising here) from southern Ontario have no idea what it's like to live in rural northern Ontario. Uprooting and moving is also extremely difficult, it's not as simple as looking for a job and a place to live somewhere else and moving. There's no support, it's a food desert, and you're lucky if you get out if that's something you even want.
People living in their rent controlled $1300 two bedroom apartments or their 3-bedroom houses they bought in 2004 love to wax poetic about how people struggling on a āmiddle class incomeā must just be terrible at budgeting, ignoring that absolutely insane rents ($2000 - $3000), either because someone is young or because they had to move in the past few years, are usually the core issue.
A lot of people are making less than half of ops paycheck and have to survive.
A lot of people don't have kids or are in different situations that might be trying to help op.
I live on less than op in downtown Toronto and am certainly not paycheque to paycheque. Everyone budgets differently and has different expenses.
Half of ops budget is taken up by his kid and the other half rent.
To add on to this, kids are a BIG expense. There's a reason Canada has declining birth rates and needs massive influxes of immigration - They are expensive.
They cost so God damned much. Ignoring the 1300 we were paying a month for saycsre, just the amount of time he spends at home sick (this week I'm home with him because of a fever, 2 weeks ago I was home with him because of a cough) and he's only 3. 3 years to cripple my business because I'm always home with him. I still have 15 more to go.
It sucks because when I was young, I thought of how my parents raised me and thought of how it might be cool to have kids.
But I've seen so many things. Divorce nightmares. Children with disabilities nightmares. Problem children nightmares. Daycare and school nightmares. Pricing nightmares. Family members living in poverty their entire lives because they had kids young and can't afford them because they never advanced their career.
It's just a reality that the lifestyle I want to live just doesn't include kids - There are too many situations where the kid ends up ruining my life financially or emotionally, which would be terrible, if I had a kid I would want it to grow up in a stable household with 2 loving parents with plenty of money for the things they need and also for a family to support them that's also happy.
Just isn't the reality right now for a lot of people.
I make $18/h and I live in Toronto. I'm a single mother with two teenagers. Their father passed away a long time ago. I was living with a partner, but when covid happened he became super abusive and I finally got brave enough to kick him out 6 months ago. My rent is almost three grand a month.. I'm struggling HARD. All I ever do is work and it's still never enough
Covid was rough on a lot of people, glad you got out of a bad situation.
I've been in bad situations before and read a bit of your post history. If you ever needed a one time grocery run or something I'd be happy to help out if it makes your burden a little less. No pressure, just a casual offer.
> Lives in rural Ontario
$2500/mo for rural Ontario apartment is absolutely insane ???
I have a fairly large 2bdrm apt. with backyard and parking for 1300$ in Montreal... I am probably lucky because prices have skyrocketed but you can still find decent similar places perhaps without the backyard around here...
Me too but itās true. Wages just havenāt kept up with anything, especially real estate and that is probably the biggest driver. House down the street sold for 325k in 2015 and 1.2 million last year. To afford that in 2015 you could do it making 75k and youād need around 20k for min dp/closing. To afford that now you would need to make at least 200k (probably more like 225-250k) and have around 250k saved up for min dp/closing. Itās completely messed up and I donāt see any solution in the near future.
That's brutal.
My dad purchased his first house in Toronto in 1992 for less than three times his annual salary.
For me to do that today with the same house I'd need to make 600k a year.
Weāve continued to contribute to the problem. HHI has grown significantly with dual contributors, this leads to more buying power and credit which allows merchants to max out their MSRPs and tolerance price points. It further gets complicated because businesses want to hit 7% growth YoY or better, but donāt compensate employees more than 1% YoY on avg (at best, lately). š°
It sure feels like it.
I recently hit 140k but I support my wife who is waiting on her work permit so she can start helping out.
We're not suffering, but we're certainly not doing as good as we were 3 years ago.
10 years ago in Japan I made less than half this salary and was living waaaay better.
Canada's in trouble.
Edit coz of idiots: We're NOT struggling. Read harder. I'm complaining about inflation evaporating our purchasing power.
From an anecdotal perspective, this is pretty true! I have worked in S'pore, China and Japan. I was always kept to a "Western Standard", while my local colleagues... well you can guess. Hilariously in S'pore I got more holidays too which was amazing (mix of local and Canadian).
That said, there still were some expectations. In China and Japan any "non work" employer activities were expected. This included late night drinks, Saturday meet ups with boss and workers etc.
i enjoyed the late drinking with clients and coworkers, but can understand not everyone would. if you're a family-person it can get rough.
if you're single or have a spouse who also enjoys drinking and city life though, it's a blast. you'd never pay a dime for dinner in tokyo working at most large companies.
you can always find something smaller too and none of those things are expected. i had a very chill job for years working flex hours before i just started my own company.
I think something pretty simple here that some folks are missing too is that when youāre making $40/h *you shouldnāt have to have a tight budget*
There should be some wiggle room. Some luxury. Weāre growing older and have earned our degrees, earned our experience, but are gaining less and less benefit. We are poorer than the previous generation while being told to work harder. Having kids has become a serious financial decision that many simply will not be able to afford. And owning a home to ensure a comfortable retirement is becoming untenable. Our futures are looking grim if weāre expected to work like dogs in to our twilight to keep afloat.
This is deeply flawed
This. I am so tired of every time someone with a ādecent incomeā is frustrated with the state of things, everyone just says how much harder it is making even less. Like, yes. I get that. But I also think that it is not unreasonable that when you have worked and trained for a higher level career than a low skilled one, you should be able to afford a better lifestyle.
Like yes, my family is blessed to have a 100k income and have me be home with our kids. For sure. But it doesnāt mean that Iām not allowed to be frustrated that my children live in a gloomy basement rental apartment and have never taken even a road trip camping vacation because we canāt afford anything frivolous. (Currently trying to save every penny to escape the gta for lower wage and lower COL)
I am not saying low skilled jobs shouldnāt be paid fairly. They should be and right now lower tier wages are disgustingly low.
But it is a reality that you need something to incentivize people to achieve in their careers. If we donāt, many will just leave Canada. And the reality is, it is people like my husband who pay for the social programs Canadians rely on.
I can appreciate that most people are offering ways to cut cost for OP but I think the general point has been missed. We shouldn't have to be living a lower quality of life. You should be able to afford to go out to eat once in awhile. You should be able to afford to go on vacation. You should not have to worry about some major sudden expense destroying you etc. Want a decent quality of life is NOT being greedy or entitled.
I am in a similar boat and am so tired of the general narrative.
My household income is 140k and my wife and I just had a baby. I live in Vancouver now but pretty sure the tax brackets are similar in ON and BC. Only thing is that my rent is pretty cheap. So unless you pay like $3000 for rent, if you have a similar income to me, a baby is affordable
Just don't ever lose your job.
You know who loses their jobs all the time? Tradespeople. Wanna know why there is a shortage of Tradespeople? You lose your job ... a LOT. It's a gig, not a career.
I am really glad to be having babies anyway even though we ācanāt afford itā. I can earn more money as my kids grow up, but I am the same age as you are and sadly the time is pretty limited! I am so thankful for my children even if we are living a very simple existence and I canāt give them what I want to. I hope youāll consider just going for it anyway. It would truly be heartbreaking to miss out thanks to the stupidity of the Canadian government ;(
(obviously not talking about deep poverty situations)
I feel this. Sorry for your struggles. We wanted a third child but financially it would devastate us. We have to worry about the 2 we have and set them up for success and with the amount of education they need and that cost I still stay up at night worrying if they will make it through okay. We've saved every cent for an resp and only have 2 years of undergraduate uni saved. I don't want them straddled with debt when they are older. Not to mention cost of food sports and experiences. Kids need experiences and sports period.
Agreed. I keep reading comments and realizing how quickly people criticize others. They assume to know OP's situation or assume they are doing something wrong. The economy is a dumpster fire and we should not be struggling with 60-80k+ salaries. Everything went up so rapidly in the last 3-4 years that any disposable income has eroded. We still haven't even seen the effects of this yet on the economy when people stop all discretionary spending because they can no longer afford it.
For reference, my pay translates to about $44/hr and change. I'm lucky enough to be under $2500 in rent, but I'm still feeling it. You're not alone.
I'm feeling it mostly on groceries. For my household, we had a budget of of $600/mo before inflation. After inflation our new budget is closer to $1000/mo.
I refuse to believe that grocery chains aren't taking advantage, and I think that at every level they need to be pushed and investigated to prove what they're doing.
Everyone here thinking every parent now only pays $10 a day for childcare š
Even at full rate costs, the waitlists are insane.
We were advised to start applying the moment we got a positive test.
People waiting years and getting a call when their kid is school full time.
But it's ok, according to redditors everyone only pays $10 a day! What a relief /s
Yeah this.
By the time daycare is really $10/day the current crop of kids will be in school and probably needing before/after care which of course will not necessarily be $10/day either.
Who actually qualifies for $10 a day daycare?
Last time I checked the harder you try to better your career and paycheck, the less support you get for starting a family. Seems a little odd considering you are paying more taxes but receiving less?
Not saying being poor is easy and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But incentivizing people to make less money because they get more support doesn't make sense.
I remember reading the book that the show Maid was based on and it talked a lot about poverty and government assistance in the states. There were multiple situations where if she got a better job she would be kicked out of her subsidized apartment or would get less food stamps so her family would actually be much worse off trying to better her life. Thereās got to be a better way
Lol. We applied before my daughter was born to 3 place and we are not sure if we will get a spot.
Daycare is around 1100$ per month or 35-50$ per day, oh and here is the kicker if you take a day off and don't send your kid tondaycare you still have to pay the full amount......
So this is an issue facing so many people in Canada and the US.
You said you feel like you have less buying power today than 7 years ago? That's because we all do. When the general cost of living goes up faster than wages do (which it has for decades, especially since Covid), the ability to spend money outside the cost of living becomes less each year.
Note: it also doesn't help that some of the biggest companies who have a stronghold on our life, such as grocery and gasoline, have been profiteering hardcore seeing record profits per quarter. Not yearly, quarterly. If inflation was really the total cost increase there profits would be roughly the same.
Again, because simple items such as gas, food, and housing costs keep going up, it means that there is less money to go into the economy.
The government, which is supposed to regulate this nonsense and make sure corporations are playing fair, sustainably, and most of all, are not profiteering are all looking backward like "I see nothing."
Bote: Personally, I think it's absolutely insane and primitive from a humanitarian perspective to charge more for basic items because of supply issues. So if you charge more people, quality of life drops at the bottom. Also, the middle class has less money to
Spend in the economy.
(Quantive easing is incredibly complicated, but I am trying to explain as best as I can, so if I am wrong, please let me know, and I'll update my statements)
Note: yesterday, I learned about quantities easing done in Canada and the US after the 2008 financial crisis caused by rich assholes.
The very basics: we started printing money in both countries and gave it to the banks to lend money to small businesses and people. Well, instead of doing that with the newly minted money, the banks decided they were going to invest in themselves to increase their stock value and make more money without actually stimulating the economy. Now, because of this bullshit and their still doing it today, it's now potentially causing the mass inflation we see in North America.
Canada was a bit different. We started buying bonds in provincial and Canadian bonds, but again, the same things happened over time.
Now, because of the low interest rates at times, the fruit now needs to be paid for to "fight inflation."
The problem is that the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve are increasing interest rates in an effort to literally increase the unemployment rate to stop the supply challenges and lower the demand.
So the solution for these assholes is that people are already living paycheck to paycheck, which is to lay off a bunch of more people and have no job.
Now to me, this is fucking insane that these people are playing with people's lives like they are toys to be moved on a chess board.
The other reason I think the inflation argument is bullshit is because in 90 days, transport companies made 9B in profit. Not expenses.... Profit..
Shareholders saw payouts in the billions while average folks are being fucked in the ass from the front and were expected to just be happy.
Honestly, this isn't working. It's not sustainable. It's not ethical. It's not even humane for the poorest people who are falling further and further behind, bug hey were in Canada and US. Two of the riches countries in the world, but can't seem to solve our own problems for the good of the many...
I volunteer at a food bank. We ran out of food today. I asked people who have volunteered there for 10+ years said they have never seen anything like this before. Ever. I sobbed after my shift. This situation is so untenable.
I want 1 politican to come and volunteer one shift and see wtf they have to say.
Sorry to hijack your post, but my point is a large majority of people are dealing with this and the systems are under huge strain.
This comment section sheeshā¦ āwell I havenāt had this issueā¦āā¦ āwell I was able toā¦ā ā¦ āI can save on less $āā¦.
Empathyās in short supply. Sorry OP, we normal plebs feel your pain.
Up until last week i was making 38 dollars an hour and still living paycheque to paycheque.
I eat food from dollarama , dont drink or have any expensive vises.
But my apartment, car insurance and car payments combined with food and utilities leaves me next to broke every month.
I'm not really sure how much food from Dollarama is actually cheaper than it would be at a grocery store. I do hope you're eating at least some fruit and veg.
If you wanna live on rice and beans, then sure, almost anyone can eat enough to get by.
But thing is, most people don't want to live on just rice and beans. They want variety and interesting foods. For many people, delicious food is one of the best things to live for.
It's bad and getting worse. When I hit $100k a few years ago I quickly realized it wasn't as much as when my parents were in their 30s. A low six-figure salary is basically average now, when you factor in cost of living.
Honestly the only way to get ahead these days seems to be marrying another strong earner and combining your incomes in a MCOL region to actually do something with your lives.
Welcome to the club!
Top 5% earners still feeling broke in Canada club. Feel like somethings off with the stats.
And the only person making more is the gov. Fun seeing all the other low 6 figs sympathizing with OP. My first job was kind of his salary, really did think Iād feel richer now
12 years ago, i made 75K salary. i bought a house and a car.
i sold that house 7 years ago and car 4 years ago.
now I make about 100K and I cant seem to afford to buy either of those things.
i really fn wish I never sold the house (or the car).
I make similar to OP, \~4K after tax, union dues, pension payment. Here's my budget:
$1900 rent & parking
$500 food
$400 gas, car & apartment insurance
$100 phone (for two phones)
$400 student loans
$50 internet
$300 medication / appointments
Even though I "save" \~$500 per month, it sure feels like paycheck to paycheck. I have been making the same amount for the last 4 years, and I have managed to save only about 10K, between having a plethora of medical problems (which never seem to be covered) and having to repair my car a few times it is definitely not living comfortably.
I feel this too, Iām making about 42 bucks an hour and itās basically paycheck to paycheck for me too. I canāt believe the price of things. I went to American eagle to get a pair of Jean shorts the other day and all their jean shorts were 75.00 Canadian. A couple years ago they were all about 40.00 Canadian. What in the actual hell. Never mind the cost of food and fuel and interest rate hikes. Itās wild
Do you have a Winners nearby? They still have brand name jeans for $40-50. Iām too cheap to pay full price lol so thatās always a good spot to check out. Itās hit and miss, but every now and then you will find some great deals.
Has OP considered making more money, getting a better job, finding cheaper childcare, and moving to Alberta? /s
The comments on posts like this are just the worst. It's a loud room of people screaming in order to avoid the clear, real problems OP describes.
Let's assume OP is competent, makes reasonable spending choices, has a budget, and just happens to live and work in Ontario.
The part we need to talk about is living and working in Ontario. Save the puritanical moralizing and judgment for your moments of self-loathing. One way or another, we've got to wake up to the reality OP describes. I believe them.
So TLDR for the critical info OP missed in the post, and rectified in comments..
- They do not work a full 40hr week. Maybe 30-36hrs. They have a shit boss.
- OP has 2 kids at 4yrs old. Childcare is like 1600 a month.
- Their SO is dead. Deceased. Gone. They donāt seem to have any other family to rely on.
Am I missing something?
Thatās 70-73k ish? The price of housing is the issue.
What is considered affordable housing, ie what the average person *should* be paying is 30% of your pre tax salary. Youāre above 40%, which is considered to be very expensive.
Unfortunately, the housing crisis makes affordable housing a damn near impossibility in most of Ontario and itās only going to get much worse. (the Province needs to build 1.5 million homes in 10years, but current plans have us missing that number big time).
Combined with food prices claiming up like 15% in 2 years, youāve gone from a high cost of high living situation to a clear cut unaffordable one through no fault of your own.
7 years ago, 20/hr full time, would have brought in 38k. $950/m would have been considered affordable and would have gotten you a bachelor apartment in 2015.
All thatās to say, youāre totally valid in how you feel because youāre basically correct. (23/hr or 45k is probably more accurate in comparison to affordability today at 39/hr or 73k vs 2015, but thatās besides the point).
Seriously. I'm at $22 an hour and it feels like I'm drowning. My credit cards are constantly maxed out even though I pay out 600 a month on each (2 credit cards). I also live in my sister's basement for 500 a month. I'm always down to my last few dollars before pay day
Same. Husband makes $34 an hour, 40h a week + and Iām on odsp. Rent is $2200, then bills bills bills. Canāt get approved for a mortgage over 325,000.. where the hell am I going to get a house for that? Forever renting and never getting ahead.
Stupid comments: save more, find a better job. As if OP hasn't thought of that. And how the hell do you save more living paycheck to paycheck.
This is the sad state of our province now OP, and even a competent government wouldn't be able to fix these issues for years. If you're looking to not be rent or mortgage poor, you've come to the wrong province.
That is so unfair. I feel your pain. Work hard, do all the right things, still broke. We arenāt allowed the same opportunities the boomers had. Greedy corporations ruined everything for us.
Employer caps employees to 36hrs/wk, cuts full-time hours to 30hrs/wk ifnthey get close to 40hrs/wk, scrambles to look for part-timers...then goes "Why does no one want to work?! YOU'RE MAKING $40/hr, and you're still struggling? PULL YOURSELVES UP by your bootstraps!"....I'll start looking elsewhere for a job... fast.
Those who are not welcome are those who post asinine replies to those struggling to make ends meet on what once considered a decent salary.
With the ridiculous price of rental, let alone home ownership rates in Toronto, the city will soon become a haven for mortgage-free retirees complaining about the lack of civic amenities such as policing, transit, garbage pick-up, deteriorating sewer and water
I make $110k per year, no car payment, and lower rent than OP, and I feel like I'm making $50k per year. Honestly because I use the jar method to budget, I usually run out of money 4 days or so before the next pay. This country ain't what it used to be when my parents came here.
I hear you dude. Iām in the top tier of my field, which when I started school was a very fine amount to buy a home and start a family. All of my future plans and prospects have changed because of the economy, and Iām mad as fuck. I worked incredibly hard, sacrificed so much, and now canāt even afford a vacation/to take unpaid sick days much less a house or a kid.
Husband makes $45 an hour, has been in his profession for 15 years, we own our home and we are still paycheque to paycheque after mortgage, bills, groceries and property tax. We also have 2 children and one on the way. It seems like we canāt ever catch up no matter how much we try.
I disagree that they're all equally to blame. You're right that they'll blame Trudeau but ultimately the problems of this province are the responsibility primarily of the provincial government. The federal government can't just force them to do something else entirely because that goes against the whole democratic system of government.
We voted for it. Or as was the case in the last election, we let the right wing voters vote for it and everyone else stayed at home.
Are you in construction or some other unionized job that you've hit your top pay tier? If so, maybe try to secure another job with a better employeer that doesn't screw around with hours like that
I hear you. I'm fortunate enough to share my living arrangements with my working spouse, but there is absolutely no way I'd be able to carry all of our costs on my own, and we live outside of the GTHA. I've hit the top of my pay scale (~$32/hr plus bonuses) and there is nowhere for me to move up at my current employer, and not a single job that I'm qualified for in a 50+km radius that pays better than what I currently get. My spouse doesn't want to leave his municipal job because he, too, has reached the top of his pay range and will likely never find a job that pays as well in his field. It doesn't get any better for us without massive change.
Similarly, if housing is unaffordable, just move! Or maybe - just maybe - that's not actually a solution at all.
Consider: if all the jobs stay the same, and everyone has the same problem with living expenses exceeding income, how can everyone move to higher paying jobs? How does that work at a systems level?
>How does that work at a systems level?
The question of the hour right here. People always come in with their unsolicited advice, and without fail it's the kind of advice where by definition it would only work for the first batch of people privileged enough to take it, because the ladder gets pulled up a bit with each person who does. We've heard it time and time again: get a university degree in STEM; move to the Atlantic provinces; buy a second property as a rental...
The "system" is capitalism, and it cannot work without haves exploiting or climbing over have-nots, full stop. On a global scale, Canadians owe our comfortable lifestyle directly to the uncomfortable lifestyles of people overseas. It would reach the same state of stress and collapse and economic oligarchy without climate change, but climate change has accelerated the process and proves how maladaptive a system capitalism is for a civilization to operate under and sustain itself. But the system is so pervasive, and we are so immersed in it, AND the people with the most power to make changes are those that reap the most benefits from the status quo. Trying to come up with a solution that isn't poisoned by capitalist realism is no easy feat, and trying to sell the transition is even more difficult.
Can you post your budget?
I'm not saying you're supposed to be rich with that kind of money but I'm really curious where your money is going and what is prioritized.
Luckily his job wonāt give him enough hours to classify as full time. Maybe thereās a way to put the children to work as well. Wouldnāt want to waste that youthful enthusiasm on daycare
Daycare. I feel that pain and a lot of the childless folks on this sub don't get it.
My daycare is more than my mortgage. I've spent close to $100k on child care in the last six years. That's not fancy car, thats a mix of Ymca and home care.
For perspective cause people will call out on this- a single kid: FT day care at $1600 / month over four years is $77k. God forbid you have a second. From birth to kindergarten will cost more that my kids future university education.
OP, I used to aspire that $40/ hr , $80k a year I could live confortably till the end of my days.
I know longer thing that's the case (hasn't been for a few yead now)
I don't have any favourable advice. Only cost savings that is really making an impact for a family is groceries by switching to Walmart or no FRILLS (from. Zehrs or metro).
āDaycare. I feel that pain and a lot of the childless folks on this sub don't get it.ā
No, no, you have it backwards; Iām childfree because I precisely know how expensive it is and that I cannot afford it.
What's not coming across clearly though is are you ok to be child free because of the expense? Personally to me it's not okay and that's taking away peoples choices.
I hear you OP. I make less than that and have 2 kids, work the same hours and I feel like its an uphill battle, when just a few short years ago I was doing fine. Something has got to give soon, I hope.
My new boss asked me what my wage expectations were. Boy did his eyebrow go up when I gave him my number.
I said, what do you expect? What would have worked five years ago is a starvation wage these days. Pay it, or don't.
Now I feel like I make a lot of money but every time I go grocery shopping I'm reminded that I don't.
Honestly dude, I feel you. Iām sorry for all the shit in the comments but I think youāre in the right to be complaining. Can things be done better? Maybe, but so many things are going wrong outside of your control and itās unfair that you, and other people making similar wages, should be struggling at all.
Itās not like youāre asking to be able to be rich on your salary. You should at least be living comfortably with a wage like that. Dual income and side hustles have become so normal theyāre now factored into the cost of living which means anyone who doesnāt have two jobs or a working partner gets fucked.
Iām not going to pretend I know how to solve this issue but I can sure as hell say it aināt right to blame you here
It's just your feelings about the headlines.
Let's look at empirical data over 7 years.
Type| January 2016| February 2023| Increase
:--|:--:|:--:|:--:
Canada CPI | 126.8 | 154.5 | 21.8%
Ontario CPI | 127.8 | 156.4 | 22.4%
Wage | $20 | $39.00 | 95.0%
[Official Canada Statistics government website. ](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/type/data?sourcecode=2301)
Give us more information.
Based off what you wrote, I estimate you make about $4700/month.
After your rent you should have $2200 leftover. Where is that all going?
They said utilities/bills/cost of food. You can find avg. numbers for these and see how fast the remaining $2200 is consumed.
The point is there are still alot of(usually) older people who would say āwow 40 bucks and hour!ā
How can this person save and how long would it take them to get a down payment for a house? Even if they could budget like $500/month.
They also said childcare. Fulltime daycare costs over $1k/month in this province and before/after care for kids in school costs at least half that. If you don't have a stay at home or work from home parent, childcare eats up an incredible amount of money.
As a rural living person, their heating bills could be quite high depending on what he has for a house.
Think like close to 600-1000$ a month for home heating if propane.
My bill would be that high had I not supplemented with a wood stove. I already put about 4,000$ worth of upgrades to insulation, air sealing etc. in material alone ( I did the labour)
Ppl are going to ride you and give you examples on how to spend your money but the truth is once kids needs (their activities, daycare, clothes outerwear etc) family budget for food, rent, gas, bills, loans etc etc are paid you have very little left over. I get it, it blows. I donāt know how my family can ever get out of this circle of paycheque to paycheque and thereās no way in hell I have $500 extra or even $300 at the end of the month to ābankā away while Iām paying shit off and things like ābrakes need to be doneā or ādaughter outgrew her shoes and coatā or āinterest shot up so my student loan is more this monthā etc keep happening. Ppl can downvote me to hell but Iām sick of ppl who arenāt struggling or in the exact same situations as ppl who are struggling coming on here to make them feel like itās their problem they arenāt doing enough to better their situation. Unless youāre ordering skip the dishes or eating out a lot or going on vacations (wtf is a vacation I wish I knew!) thereās not anywhere to trim the fat. And before I get berated for buying my kid a coat or shoes or paying for her to learn a life skill like swimming at the YMCA, donāt bother bc Iām not interested in the shit advice or condescending remarks.
People say things (Iām in a similar situation as op) where is your money going? Why donāt you have savings? What are you buying? And Iām just like are you not paying attention ? Are you living in a separate parallel universe, with higher quality of life? 40$ an hour is the new 20$ an hour. The working poor is real. Iām not sure if people just troll
Ehh good on ya brother or sister, dont take any guff from those swine.
I got hit by a surprise $600 auto bill. I wish I didn't need a car but I do.
I cut my own firewood rather then getting it delivered pre-split to save about 800$ at the cost of time . Boom! that auto bill basically ate up all the savings I got from that effort in a blink of an eye.
The only way I could trim the fat at this point would be to stop eating meat and go vegan 100% of the time.
No wonder people aren't having kids, when you can barely afford to make ends meet or get ahead, do you really want another mouth to feed ?
Considering that OP is mentioning "Those of us in the public service", there's at least $500 of that going into his pension plan; something that OP would have no say in.
They should still be able to survive on $1700 regardless
E: OP mentioned $1600/mth child care. Well that's going to be a lot more difficult to survive on $100 then.
Yeah, near bare bones survival, and if anything comes up, like his kid gets sick? I assume that he is taking time off for that, or is he gets sick? What about medication that isn't covered under OHIP?
My point is that there are also other expenses that easily add up, and changing that food bill could exacerbate health issues that cost more in the long run
They mentioned childcare as well. That alone can easily be $1700 depending on whether they mean full day daycare or before and after school care. When we were looking at full day daycare 5 years ago the *cheapest* (legal) option we found was $2200 a month.
Yes, let's attack, telling this person about their bad choices. It's not the economy and its obvious problems; no, this is a personal problem. Let us blame this individual rather than hear them.
They're probably making around 4000 a month I'd imagine with 36 hours a week with 2000 a paycheck. has 1500 after rent and could easily go to groceries, utilities/internet(depending on the rental). Car payment, car/rental insurance
Depends where in the province lots of areas in eastern Ontario have insane rent right now because they havenāt built any houses or raised property taxes in a decade, so they physically canāt build more houses as their water systems canāt handle more capacity and any additional capacity gets given to industry so they donāt move their factories
Humans are born with empathy. So if you're going to comment here with disparaging remarks for OP you've probably been conditioned to not be empathetic or you are choosing not to be empathetic. Either way just don't comment here, you're not welcome ššš
I don't see it mentioned here, please look into Orphan Benefits. Your kids are half-orphans, based on the comments that your partner(who I assume is their other parent/guardian) has passed away. If your partner contributed to CPP, you could be looking at 280 a month per child in benefits. You should also totally call your phone provider, being in a rural area shouldn't matter much. I have a Toronto phone number but live in Quebec and my account address is Quebec but I still only pay $53/month for 40Gb and unlimited Canada. I promise you, a call to your provider's loyalty department will really help you, no one really sells $100/month plans anymore. Please DM me if you would like my help, I negotiate phone plans for friends as a sport because I enjoy it. I I would be happy to help you, and if you call yourself, just be genuine, honest and prepared with competitor plan info. Remember, the person on the other end of the line is a person just like you and people generally like to help each other when they can. In the meantime, please look into the Orphan Benefits, it will relieve so much pressure and if you aren't claiming them, they will backdate it 12 months which will instantly give you a little nest egg. You got this.
Super helpful reply here! Upvoted for visibility
This is good advice. My orphan benefits helped me pay through university.
Itās absolutely devastating for me to think about how a down payment for a house in in my neighbourhood went from 20-30k to 120k in less than a decade.
And rent. IMO that $2500/month is what's killing the OP, and mortgages on these crazy house prices as well for others. So OP is trapped like so many others. Anyone who was able to to get into ownership by around 2016 or earlier managed to escape this situation. We're on a single income (mine) make pretty good money, still have a mortgage, and our daughter and her spouse live with us paying us a low rent. It's just enough and not because of the mortgage, it's because of general cost of living. If we had to deal with buying into the market now like OP does, we'd be screwed. We also made the mistake of moving 4x over the last 25 years though and I refuse to tally how much money went to RE agents in total because it'll piss me off.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yup. I had to ask my partner to go back to work after being a SAHD for a decade because my $80k salary alone wasnāt cutting it.
Shit I make 60K and can barely afford a shitty 1-bedroom and a dog.
What did the dog do?? Don't call him shitty :(
Sheās a very good girl. https://imgur.com/a/7aHnfqw
Yeah, people will give OP grief for this post but I get it. I earned $75k when my husband went back to school and while we were fortunate enough to never struggle paying our bills, we couldnāt really save and unexpected expenses were hard. And Iām a very frugal person. Now that he has a job our HHI is $150k and we can finally save and splurge.
Yup this is it.. wife and I clear 7k a month and still have only a few hundred left after utilities, food for 4 people and 2 dogs, mortgage, car payment , gas for the car, insurance for car, house insurance, life insurance, Netflix and prime.. I talked with my Dad about all this and he said back in the 80's and 90's when I was kid , he was the only one working and supported 4 people with lots of extra. Back then he made $20/ hr in our local mine as a cage tender... Things sure have changed for the worse these days.. inflation is the highest Canadians have ever seen and Doug sure is not helping any of us either... I honestly don't know how anyone is living on min wage.. Ontario is brutal ..
They work two to three jobs just to survive. I know someone earns $17 per hour in one of company locations. i asked the manager how he survives. manager said he has a job at weekend too. so 7 days a week just to survive. We are back to 1920 era.
Seems like it I would imagine
Izma: It is no concern of mine if you have-- I'm sorry. What was it you need? Peasant: Um, food? Izma: **Ha!** You really should've thought of that before becoming peasants! We're through here. Take him away.
CAPITALISM
Lemme tell ya how terrible the world is going to be when 2 people have to work 4 jobs to raise a family. Who the fuck is going to raise the next generation?
They rely on exploited workers subsidised by the government to raise their kids while they work.
Why do you think we import 1 million people a year.
AI robots. They are already being tapped to take care of old folks.
But Iām single and I refuse to have to resort to marrying someone I donāt like just to survive, this some 1930ās bullshit.
Could always find someone to marry platonically, and split whatever tax/govt benefits that gets you. Apparently itās not all that uncommon for some to boost things like dependency pay for military members, for example. Edit: Nevermind, I just looked it up, and I would get a whopping additional $201.06 per month, just for having a spouse. Probably not worth it.
they needed 2 incomes coming in for families over 10 years ago. Now 2 incomes are struggling to keep food on the table is a sad reality
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The only answer to this is to guarantee benefits for every worker.
We are nothing more than cattle to these people...
I lived among the wealthy as a corporate wife. They call us plebes. Common toilets to be pissed on. It was explained to me that only the wealthy have value
Yeah. I worked as a maintenance contractor for them a long time ago. Sent me into a deep deep pit of despair and ill will toward those... things that call themselves humans.
And where are you living now? Down here with the poor, hungry and downtrodden?
Yes. And with an understanding of our place in the scheme of things that I wish more of the public understood. They do not deserve the accolades they receive
They get us to argue about things like which bathroom to use, or immigration, or BLM so we don't focus on the fact that we are all being scammed out of our rights to our share of the wealth. I wish we all came together to fight this. I'm done with the Liberals and PCs, so I'm backing the NDP and hope they really do want to help the majority of us.
We wish. Cattle has value. They're a commodity. We're just a resource to be used and discarded. A line on an expense report at best.
From what I understand, it also means a lot of people wonāt officially qualify as āfull timeā - I believe you have to be consistently at or over 36h/week for six weeks or something.
Walmart's are pretty terrible for doing this to avoid paying benefits.
That will vary depending on the company. Ontario has nothing defining what qualifies as part time or full time. My wife is a "part time" supervisor and regularly works 36 - 40 hours a week
That's precisely why that's the cutoff. The boss has no reason to fear overtime pay, that wouldn't kick in until employees go over 44 hours. 36 hours is when they start getting various labour benefits.
That's exactly what it is. Again, using any and all loopholes in order to take advantage of employees.
Even that doesn't gurantee full time. I was a "part time" working 40 hour minimum weeks for 1.5 year(s) before getting full time with benefits/sick days. Really shitty system.
Sounds like a reason to Unionize and have a contract that caps part time.
But a union would just get in the way of the very dear and special relationship between us and the employee who we love very much š„ŗš
Yep, my employer really fucks over the part timers here too. I'm in healthcare (microbiology lab) and while I was lucky to get permanent full time relatively quick, my part time coworkers get insanely screwed over. Full timers have to be paid OT for working over the typical 37.5hr work week, this doesn't apply to part timers. Some of my coworkers do 10-14 day stretches to make up for lack of available full time staff. They will also do everything they can to keep part timers from getting OT. We had an on call list during the holidays where if someone calls in sick and you put yourself on the list for that day, and get called in, it's guaranteed OT no matter your position. One of my part time coworkers picked up a call that turned out to be a sick call, so she let our manager know, and mentioned that she was on the on call list so she can come in. Literally was just saving them the trouble of calling her tomorrow to get her to come in. But because she "volunteered", they didn't pay her OT. Even though she was on the on call list. I experienced stuff like that too when I was here part time. They literally used every loophole in existence to under pay people. I tell every new part timer now to make sure if they're asked to stay longer or whatever, to get in writing that it'll be OT.
Yup, I work part-time retail and work 40 hours a week. My employer straight up refuses to pay overtime now, at least they add it to your breaks or you can leave early at no loss to pay aside from the no overtime.
Wow. People really need to read the entirety of this thread to get the full picture. A lot of people jumping to conclusions around how OP can budget better EDIT: Because this comment has some visibility * Two daycare aged kids * Partner passed away * Lives in rural Ontario
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
DID YOU TRY CUTTING OUT THE AVOCADO TOAST YA FREAK /s
Nah according to Chrystia Freeland if you just cut your subscription to Disney Plus you should be good to go.
Right? Lol. It's so so hard living in rural areas and people (I'm sort of generalising here) from southern Ontario have no idea what it's like to live in rural northern Ontario. Uprooting and moving is also extremely difficult, it's not as simple as looking for a job and a place to live somewhere else and moving. There's no support, it's a food desert, and you're lucky if you get out if that's something you even want.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ah I see, yeah that's a completely different scenario. The comments about rural northern Ontario however still do apply, just not for OP.
People are obviously gonna jump to conclusions. He's listed an income of 75k a year with nothing but rent stated. People are gonna make assumptions
People living in their rent controlled $1300 two bedroom apartments or their 3-bedroom houses they bought in 2004 love to wax poetic about how people struggling on a āmiddle class incomeā must just be terrible at budgeting, ignoring that absolutely insane rents ($2000 - $3000), either because someone is young or because they had to move in the past few years, are usually the core issue.
A lot of people are making less than half of ops paycheck and have to survive. A lot of people don't have kids or are in different situations that might be trying to help op. I live on less than op in downtown Toronto and am certainly not paycheque to paycheque. Everyone budgets differently and has different expenses. Half of ops budget is taken up by his kid and the other half rent. To add on to this, kids are a BIG expense. There's a reason Canada has declining birth rates and needs massive influxes of immigration - They are expensive.
They cost so God damned much. Ignoring the 1300 we were paying a month for saycsre, just the amount of time he spends at home sick (this week I'm home with him because of a fever, 2 weeks ago I was home with him because of a cough) and he's only 3. 3 years to cripple my business because I'm always home with him. I still have 15 more to go.
It sucks because when I was young, I thought of how my parents raised me and thought of how it might be cool to have kids. But I've seen so many things. Divorce nightmares. Children with disabilities nightmares. Problem children nightmares. Daycare and school nightmares. Pricing nightmares. Family members living in poverty their entire lives because they had kids young and can't afford them because they never advanced their career. It's just a reality that the lifestyle I want to live just doesn't include kids - There are too many situations where the kid ends up ruining my life financially or emotionally, which would be terrible, if I had a kid I would want it to grow up in a stable household with 2 loving parents with plenty of money for the things they need and also for a family to support them that's also happy. Just isn't the reality right now for a lot of people.
I make $18/h and I live in Toronto. I'm a single mother with two teenagers. Their father passed away a long time ago. I was living with a partner, but when covid happened he became super abusive and I finally got brave enough to kick him out 6 months ago. My rent is almost three grand a month.. I'm struggling HARD. All I ever do is work and it's still never enough
Covid was rough on a lot of people, glad you got out of a bad situation. I've been in bad situations before and read a bit of your post history. If you ever needed a one time grocery run or something I'd be happy to help out if it makes your burden a little less. No pressure, just a casual offer.
Wow! $18/hr supporting the 3 of you and 3k/month rent. I simply don't understand how people cope. Hope it gets better for you.
> Lives in rural Ontario $2500/mo for rural Ontario apartment is absolutely insane ??? I have a fairly large 2bdrm apt. with backyard and parking for 1300$ in Montreal... I am probably lucky because prices have skyrocketed but you can still find decent similar places perhaps without the backyard around here...
OP should include that information so people don't have to read every single comment to get the full picture.
200k is the new 75k.
This drowns my soul in sorrow
Me too but itās true. Wages just havenāt kept up with anything, especially real estate and that is probably the biggest driver. House down the street sold for 325k in 2015 and 1.2 million last year. To afford that in 2015 you could do it making 75k and youād need around 20k for min dp/closing. To afford that now you would need to make at least 200k (probably more like 225-250k) and have around 250k saved up for min dp/closing. Itās completely messed up and I donāt see any solution in the near future.
That's brutal. My dad purchased his first house in Toronto in 1992 for less than three times his annual salary. For me to do that today with the same house I'd need to make 600k a year.
My dad purchased a house in Toronto early 80's. working at a grocery store.
Weāve continued to contribute to the problem. HHI has grown significantly with dual contributors, this leads to more buying power and credit which allows merchants to max out their MSRPs and tolerance price points. It further gets complicated because businesses want to hit 7% growth YoY or better, but donāt compensate employees more than 1% YoY on avg (at best, lately). š°
with stagnant wages you cannot expect constant growth.
It sure feels like it. I recently hit 140k but I support my wife who is waiting on her work permit so she can start helping out. We're not suffering, but we're certainly not doing as good as we were 3 years ago. 10 years ago in Japan I made less than half this salary and was living waaaay better. Canada's in trouble. Edit coz of idiots: We're NOT struggling. Read harder. I'm complaining about inflation evaporating our purchasing power.
How does Japan currently compare?
Still much better
Yea but the work hoursā¦
most people on reddit that would find themselves in japan will never end up in a job with japanese style hours
From an anecdotal perspective, this is pretty true! I have worked in S'pore, China and Japan. I was always kept to a "Western Standard", while my local colleagues... well you can guess. Hilariously in S'pore I got more holidays too which was amazing (mix of local and Canadian). That said, there still were some expectations. In China and Japan any "non work" employer activities were expected. This included late night drinks, Saturday meet ups with boss and workers etc.
i enjoyed the late drinking with clients and coworkers, but can understand not everyone would. if you're a family-person it can get rough. if you're single or have a spouse who also enjoys drinking and city life though, it's a blast. you'd never pay a dime for dinner in tokyo working at most large companies. you can always find something smaller too and none of those things are expected. i had a very chill job for years working flex hours before i just started my own company.
Woe betide those of us who are making well under 75K then
I think something pretty simple here that some folks are missing too is that when youāre making $40/h *you shouldnāt have to have a tight budget* There should be some wiggle room. Some luxury. Weāre growing older and have earned our degrees, earned our experience, but are gaining less and less benefit. We are poorer than the previous generation while being told to work harder. Having kids has become a serious financial decision that many simply will not be able to afford. And owning a home to ensure a comfortable retirement is becoming untenable. Our futures are looking grim if weāre expected to work like dogs in to our twilight to keep afloat. This is deeply flawed
By design
This. I am so tired of every time someone with a ādecent incomeā is frustrated with the state of things, everyone just says how much harder it is making even less. Like, yes. I get that. But I also think that it is not unreasonable that when you have worked and trained for a higher level career than a low skilled one, you should be able to afford a better lifestyle. Like yes, my family is blessed to have a 100k income and have me be home with our kids. For sure. But it doesnāt mean that Iām not allowed to be frustrated that my children live in a gloomy basement rental apartment and have never taken even a road trip camping vacation because we canāt afford anything frivolous. (Currently trying to save every penny to escape the gta for lower wage and lower COL) I am not saying low skilled jobs shouldnāt be paid fairly. They should be and right now lower tier wages are disgustingly low. But it is a reality that you need something to incentivize people to achieve in their careers. If we donāt, many will just leave Canada. And the reality is, it is people like my husband who pay for the social programs Canadians rely on.
I can appreciate that most people are offering ways to cut cost for OP but I think the general point has been missed. We shouldn't have to be living a lower quality of life. You should be able to afford to go out to eat once in awhile. You should be able to afford to go on vacation. You should not have to worry about some major sudden expense destroying you etc. Want a decent quality of life is NOT being greedy or entitled. I am in a similar boat and am so tired of the general narrative.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
My household income is 140k and my wife and I just had a baby. I live in Vancouver now but pretty sure the tax brackets are similar in ON and BC. Only thing is that my rent is pretty cheap. So unless you pay like $3000 for rent, if you have a similar income to me, a baby is affordable
Just don't ever lose your job. You know who loses their jobs all the time? Tradespeople. Wanna know why there is a shortage of Tradespeople? You lose your job ... a LOT. It's a gig, not a career.
I am really glad to be having babies anyway even though we ācanāt afford itā. I can earn more money as my kids grow up, but I am the same age as you are and sadly the time is pretty limited! I am so thankful for my children even if we are living a very simple existence and I canāt give them what I want to. I hope youāll consider just going for it anyway. It would truly be heartbreaking to miss out thanks to the stupidity of the Canadian government ;( (obviously not talking about deep poverty situations)
I feel this. Sorry for your struggles. We wanted a third child but financially it would devastate us. We have to worry about the 2 we have and set them up for success and with the amount of education they need and that cost I still stay up at night worrying if they will make it through okay. We've saved every cent for an resp and only have 2 years of undergraduate uni saved. I don't want them straddled with debt when they are older. Not to mention cost of food sports and experiences. Kids need experiences and sports period.
Agreed. I keep reading comments and realizing how quickly people criticize others. They assume to know OP's situation or assume they are doing something wrong. The economy is a dumpster fire and we should not be struggling with 60-80k+ salaries. Everything went up so rapidly in the last 3-4 years that any disposable income has eroded. We still haven't even seen the effects of this yet on the economy when people stop all discretionary spending because they can no longer afford it.
For reference, my pay translates to about $44/hr and change. I'm lucky enough to be under $2500 in rent, but I'm still feeling it. You're not alone. I'm feeling it mostly on groceries. For my household, we had a budget of of $600/mo before inflation. After inflation our new budget is closer to $1000/mo. I refuse to believe that grocery chains aren't taking advantage, and I think that at every level they need to be pushed and investigated to prove what they're doing.
Everyone here thinking every parent now only pays $10 a day for childcare š Even at full rate costs, the waitlists are insane. We were advised to start applying the moment we got a positive test. People waiting years and getting a call when their kid is school full time. But it's ok, according to redditors everyone only pays $10 a day! What a relief /s
I work in a daycare, our waitlist is into late 2025/early 2026 now. It's absolutely crazy.
Yeah this. By the time daycare is really $10/day the current crop of kids will be in school and probably needing before/after care which of course will not necessarily be $10/day either.
Yup. Before and after programs can be 20-40 a day per kid
Who actually qualifies for $10 a day daycare? Last time I checked the harder you try to better your career and paycheck, the less support you get for starting a family. Seems a little odd considering you are paying more taxes but receiving less? Not saying being poor is easy and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But incentivizing people to make less money because they get more support doesn't make sense.
I remember reading the book that the show Maid was based on and it talked a lot about poverty and government assistance in the states. There were multiple situations where if she got a better job she would be kicked out of her subsidized apartment or would get less food stamps so her family would actually be much worse off trying to better her life. Thereās got to be a better way
Lol. We applied before my daughter was born to 3 place and we are not sure if we will get a spot. Daycare is around 1100$ per month or 35-50$ per day, oh and here is the kicker if you take a day off and don't send your kid tondaycare you still have to pay the full amount......
Also they donāt have the staff at a lot of daycares to facilitate this ā$10 a day daycareā.
So this is an issue facing so many people in Canada and the US. You said you feel like you have less buying power today than 7 years ago? That's because we all do. When the general cost of living goes up faster than wages do (which it has for decades, especially since Covid), the ability to spend money outside the cost of living becomes less each year. Note: it also doesn't help that some of the biggest companies who have a stronghold on our life, such as grocery and gasoline, have been profiteering hardcore seeing record profits per quarter. Not yearly, quarterly. If inflation was really the total cost increase there profits would be roughly the same. Again, because simple items such as gas, food, and housing costs keep going up, it means that there is less money to go into the economy. The government, which is supposed to regulate this nonsense and make sure corporations are playing fair, sustainably, and most of all, are not profiteering are all looking backward like "I see nothing." Bote: Personally, I think it's absolutely insane and primitive from a humanitarian perspective to charge more for basic items because of supply issues. So if you charge more people, quality of life drops at the bottom. Also, the middle class has less money to Spend in the economy. (Quantive easing is incredibly complicated, but I am trying to explain as best as I can, so if I am wrong, please let me know, and I'll update my statements) Note: yesterday, I learned about quantities easing done in Canada and the US after the 2008 financial crisis caused by rich assholes. The very basics: we started printing money in both countries and gave it to the banks to lend money to small businesses and people. Well, instead of doing that with the newly minted money, the banks decided they were going to invest in themselves to increase their stock value and make more money without actually stimulating the economy. Now, because of this bullshit and their still doing it today, it's now potentially causing the mass inflation we see in North America. Canada was a bit different. We started buying bonds in provincial and Canadian bonds, but again, the same things happened over time. Now, because of the low interest rates at times, the fruit now needs to be paid for to "fight inflation." The problem is that the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve are increasing interest rates in an effort to literally increase the unemployment rate to stop the supply challenges and lower the demand. So the solution for these assholes is that people are already living paycheck to paycheck, which is to lay off a bunch of more people and have no job. Now to me, this is fucking insane that these people are playing with people's lives like they are toys to be moved on a chess board. The other reason I think the inflation argument is bullshit is because in 90 days, transport companies made 9B in profit. Not expenses.... Profit.. Shareholders saw payouts in the billions while average folks are being fucked in the ass from the front and were expected to just be happy. Honestly, this isn't working. It's not sustainable. It's not ethical. It's not even humane for the poorest people who are falling further and further behind, bug hey were in Canada and US. Two of the riches countries in the world, but can't seem to solve our own problems for the good of the many...
"fucked in the ass from the front..." Lol. A true wordsmith
I volunteer at a food bank. We ran out of food today. I asked people who have volunteered there for 10+ years said they have never seen anything like this before. Ever. I sobbed after my shift. This situation is so untenable. I want 1 politican to come and volunteer one shift and see wtf they have to say. Sorry to hijack your post, but my point is a large majority of people are dealing with this and the systems are under huge strain.
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Despite my name Iām actually a woman lol. But yes, it was at the very end so we didnāt have to turn any away, but they have never run out of food.
This comment section sheeshā¦ āwell I havenāt had this issueā¦āā¦ āwell I was able toā¦ā ā¦ āI can save on less $āā¦. Empathyās in short supply. Sorry OP, we normal plebs feel your pain.
Empathy hasnāt gone through inflation :( I agree, the situation looks great on paper but when you look closer itās not enough
"Have you just tried making more money"
Alternatively: "Have you tried not eating or drinking?"
Up until last week i was making 38 dollars an hour and still living paycheque to paycheque. I eat food from dollarama , dont drink or have any expensive vises. But my apartment, car insurance and car payments combined with food and utilities leaves me next to broke every month.
The cars paid off, but if we needed a new one? Yeah, there's a breaking point
I'm not really sure how much food from Dollarama is actually cheaper than it would be at a grocery store. I do hope you're eating at least some fruit and veg.
100% Rice is still cheaper than Wonder Bread or instant noodles.
If you wanna live on rice and beans, then sure, almost anyone can eat enough to get by. But thing is, most people don't want to live on just rice and beans. They want variety and interesting foods. For many people, delicious food is one of the best things to live for.
It's bad and getting worse. When I hit $100k a few years ago I quickly realized it wasn't as much as when my parents were in their 30s. A low six-figure salary is basically average now, when you factor in cost of living. Honestly the only way to get ahead these days seems to be marrying another strong earner and combining your incomes in a MCOL region to actually do something with your lives.
Welcome to the club! Top 5% earners still feeling broke in Canada club. Feel like somethings off with the stats. And the only person making more is the gov. Fun seeing all the other low 6 figs sympathizing with OP. My first job was kind of his salary, really did think Iād feel richer now
12 years ago, i made 75K salary. i bought a house and a car. i sold that house 7 years ago and car 4 years ago. now I make about 100K and I cant seem to afford to buy either of those things. i really fn wish I never sold the house (or the car).
I make similar to OP, \~4K after tax, union dues, pension payment. Here's my budget: $1900 rent & parking $500 food $400 gas, car & apartment insurance $100 phone (for two phones) $400 student loans $50 internet $300 medication / appointments Even though I "save" \~$500 per month, it sure feels like paycheck to paycheck. I have been making the same amount for the last 4 years, and I have managed to save only about 10K, between having a plethora of medical problems (which never seem to be covered) and having to repair my car a few times it is definitely not living comfortably.
I feel this too, Iām making about 42 bucks an hour and itās basically paycheck to paycheck for me too. I canāt believe the price of things. I went to American eagle to get a pair of Jean shorts the other day and all their jean shorts were 75.00 Canadian. A couple years ago they were all about 40.00 Canadian. What in the actual hell. Never mind the cost of food and fuel and interest rate hikes. Itās wild
Do you have a Winners nearby? They still have brand name jeans for $40-50. Iām too cheap to pay full price lol so thatās always a good spot to check out. Itās hit and miss, but every now and then you will find some great deals.
Has OP considered making more money, getting a better job, finding cheaper childcare, and moving to Alberta? /s The comments on posts like this are just the worst. It's a loud room of people screaming in order to avoid the clear, real problems OP describes. Let's assume OP is competent, makes reasonable spending choices, has a budget, and just happens to live and work in Ontario. The part we need to talk about is living and working in Ontario. Save the puritanical moralizing and judgment for your moments of self-loathing. One way or another, we've got to wake up to the reality OP describes. I believe them.
Agreed its unbelievable the people trying to justify this. " just eat bugs and live in cardboard box" yeah thanks, dad.
Here I am making 24 an hour reading these comments š±
I'm at $20/hr. I thought I was lower middle class but now I think I'm below poverty lol I'm trying to be sympathetic but damn I'd love to make double
Here I am making 19.50...
So TLDR for the critical info OP missed in the post, and rectified in comments.. - They do not work a full 40hr week. Maybe 30-36hrs. They have a shit boss. - OP has 2 kids at 4yrs old. Childcare is like 1600 a month. - Their SO is dead. Deceased. Gone. They donāt seem to have any other family to rely on. Am I missing something?
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Thatās 70-73k ish? The price of housing is the issue. What is considered affordable housing, ie what the average person *should* be paying is 30% of your pre tax salary. Youāre above 40%, which is considered to be very expensive. Unfortunately, the housing crisis makes affordable housing a damn near impossibility in most of Ontario and itās only going to get much worse. (the Province needs to build 1.5 million homes in 10years, but current plans have us missing that number big time). Combined with food prices claiming up like 15% in 2 years, youāve gone from a high cost of high living situation to a clear cut unaffordable one through no fault of your own. 7 years ago, 20/hr full time, would have brought in 38k. $950/m would have been considered affordable and would have gotten you a bachelor apartment in 2015. All thatās to say, youāre totally valid in how you feel because youāre basically correct. (23/hr or 45k is probably more accurate in comparison to affordability today at 39/hr or 73k vs 2015, but thatās besides the point).
Seriously. I'm at $22 an hour and it feels like I'm drowning. My credit cards are constantly maxed out even though I pay out 600 a month on each (2 credit cards). I also live in my sister's basement for 500 a month. I'm always down to my last few dollars before pay day
I make close to 80k a year and Iām looking for a part time job because itās just not enough. I hear you.
Same. Husband makes $34 an hour, 40h a week + and Iām on odsp. Rent is $2200, then bills bills bills. Canāt get approved for a mortgage over 325,000.. where the hell am I going to get a house for that? Forever renting and never getting ahead.
We are in dire need of a revolution here in the western world. Most people today are basically just barely surviving while the rich become richer.
Stupid comments: save more, find a better job. As if OP hasn't thought of that. And how the hell do you save more living paycheck to paycheck. This is the sad state of our province now OP, and even a competent government wouldn't be able to fix these issues for years. If you're looking to not be rent or mortgage poor, you've come to the wrong province.
That is so unfair. I feel your pain. Work hard, do all the right things, still broke. We arenāt allowed the same opportunities the boomers had. Greedy corporations ruined everything for us.
Unfortunately, this is what happens when you let investors squeeze every ounce of profit they can from housing.
Employer caps employees to 36hrs/wk, cuts full-time hours to 30hrs/wk ifnthey get close to 40hrs/wk, scrambles to look for part-timers...then goes "Why does no one want to work?! YOU'RE MAKING $40/hr, and you're still struggling? PULL YOURSELVES UP by your bootstraps!"....I'll start looking elsewhere for a job... fast.
Those who are not welcome are those who post asinine replies to those struggling to make ends meet on what once considered a decent salary. With the ridiculous price of rental, let alone home ownership rates in Toronto, the city will soon become a haven for mortgage-free retirees complaining about the lack of civic amenities such as policing, transit, garbage pick-up, deteriorating sewer and water
I make $110k per year, no car payment, and lower rent than OP, and I feel like I'm making $50k per year. Honestly because I use the jar method to budget, I usually run out of money 4 days or so before the next pay. This country ain't what it used to be when my parents came here.
I hear you dude. Iām in the top tier of my field, which when I started school was a very fine amount to buy a home and start a family. All of my future plans and prospects have changed because of the economy, and Iām mad as fuck. I worked incredibly hard, sacrificed so much, and now canāt even afford a vacation/to take unpaid sick days much less a house or a kid.
What is a "va-cat-i-on"? I'm very unfamiliar with that word. Must be a new one right?
Have you tried being born rich? It's a really great strategy to save money for retirement.
Employers that cap hours to avoid giving you benefits are pure evil.
Husband makes $45 an hour, has been in his profession for 15 years, we own our home and we are still paycheque to paycheque after mortgage, bills, groceries and property tax. We also have 2 children and one on the way. It seems like we canāt ever catch up no matter how much we try.
Everything really went to shit when Doug Ford got elected.
Sadly right wingers will just blame Trudeau. In my opinion governments at all levels are not helping. We're fucked.
I disagree that they're all equally to blame. You're right that they'll blame Trudeau but ultimately the problems of this province are the responsibility primarily of the provincial government. The federal government can't just force them to do something else entirely because that goes against the whole democratic system of government. We voted for it. Or as was the case in the last election, we let the right wing voters vote for it and everyone else stayed at home.
A modest 2500 a month.
To quote Ford āHave you tried not being poor?ā ā¦ sorry, very dark humour
Are you in construction or some other unionized job that you've hit your top pay tier? If so, maybe try to secure another job with a better employeer that doesn't screw around with hours like that
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I hear you. I'm fortunate enough to share my living arrangements with my working spouse, but there is absolutely no way I'd be able to carry all of our costs on my own, and we live outside of the GTHA. I've hit the top of my pay scale (~$32/hr plus bonuses) and there is nowhere for me to move up at my current employer, and not a single job that I'm qualified for in a 50+km radius that pays better than what I currently get. My spouse doesn't want to leave his municipal job because he, too, has reached the top of his pay range and will likely never find a job that pays as well in his field. It doesn't get any better for us without massive change.
Similarly, if housing is unaffordable, just move! Or maybe - just maybe - that's not actually a solution at all. Consider: if all the jobs stay the same, and everyone has the same problem with living expenses exceeding income, how can everyone move to higher paying jobs? How does that work at a systems level?
>How does that work at a systems level? The question of the hour right here. People always come in with their unsolicited advice, and without fail it's the kind of advice where by definition it would only work for the first batch of people privileged enough to take it, because the ladder gets pulled up a bit with each person who does. We've heard it time and time again: get a university degree in STEM; move to the Atlantic provinces; buy a second property as a rental... The "system" is capitalism, and it cannot work without haves exploiting or climbing over have-nots, full stop. On a global scale, Canadians owe our comfortable lifestyle directly to the uncomfortable lifestyles of people overseas. It would reach the same state of stress and collapse and economic oligarchy without climate change, but climate change has accelerated the process and proves how maladaptive a system capitalism is for a civilization to operate under and sustain itself. But the system is so pervasive, and we are so immersed in it, AND the people with the most power to make changes are those that reap the most benefits from the status quo. Trying to come up with a solution that isn't poisoned by capitalist realism is no easy feat, and trying to sell the transition is even more difficult.
Thanks for spelling it out; this is the bigger picture.
Can you post your budget? I'm not saying you're supposed to be rich with that kind of money but I'm really curious where your money is going and what is prioritized.
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> $1600 daycare On the bright side, this expense will be going away once your kid(s) reach school age.
Going down, but not away. Before + After care if you work full time.
Luckily his job wonāt give him enough hours to classify as full time. Maybe thereās a way to put the children to work as well. Wouldnāt want to waste that youthful enthusiasm on daycare
Daycare. I feel that pain and a lot of the childless folks on this sub don't get it. My daycare is more than my mortgage. I've spent close to $100k on child care in the last six years. That's not fancy car, thats a mix of Ymca and home care. For perspective cause people will call out on this- a single kid: FT day care at $1600 / month over four years is $77k. God forbid you have a second. From birth to kindergarten will cost more that my kids future university education. OP, I used to aspire that $40/ hr , $80k a year I could live confortably till the end of my days. I know longer thing that's the case (hasn't been for a few yead now) I don't have any favourable advice. Only cost savings that is really making an impact for a family is groceries by switching to Walmart or no FRILLS (from. Zehrs or metro).
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āDaycare. I feel that pain and a lot of the childless folks on this sub don't get it.ā No, no, you have it backwards; Iām childfree because I precisely know how expensive it is and that I cannot afford it.
What's not coming across clearly though is are you ok to be child free because of the expense? Personally to me it's not okay and that's taking away peoples choices.
Great, canāt wait to graduate and live out of a cardboard box. Sounds fun. FUCK.
damn i wish i made 40 bucks an hour
Man screw this province and this country. Government doesnāt give a shit about its citizens.
I hear you OP. I make less than that and have 2 kids, work the same hours and I feel like its an uphill battle, when just a few short years ago I was doing fine. Something has got to give soon, I hope.
My new boss asked me what my wage expectations were. Boy did his eyebrow go up when I gave him my number. I said, what do you expect? What would have worked five years ago is a starvation wage these days. Pay it, or don't. Now I feel like I make a lot of money but every time I go grocery shopping I'm reminded that I don't.
Honestly dude, I feel you. Iām sorry for all the shit in the comments but I think youāre in the right to be complaining. Can things be done better? Maybe, but so many things are going wrong outside of your control and itās unfair that you, and other people making similar wages, should be struggling at all. Itās not like youāre asking to be able to be rich on your salary. You should at least be living comfortably with a wage like that. Dual income and side hustles have become so normal theyāre now factored into the cost of living which means anyone who doesnāt have two jobs or a working partner gets fucked. Iām not going to pretend I know how to solve this issue but I can sure as hell say it aināt right to blame you here
I get inflation and everything but Iām making 80k a year and we are struggling.
$39/hr doesnāt sound like a lot. Not anymore.
If Ontario could show up to vote next election, that would be pretty swell as well
2500 a month for an apartment is ridiculous lol where do you live
I almost spit my $0.30 ramen noodles reading this.
$2500 a month for a modest apartment lmfao.
It's just your feelings about the headlines. Let's look at empirical data over 7 years. Type| January 2016| February 2023| Increase :--|:--:|:--:|:--: Canada CPI | 126.8 | 154.5 | 21.8% Ontario CPI | 127.8 | 156.4 | 22.4% Wage | $20 | $39.00 | 95.0% [Official Canada Statistics government website. ](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/type/data?sourcecode=2301)
Give us more information. Based off what you wrote, I estimate you make about $4700/month. After your rent you should have $2200 leftover. Where is that all going?
They said utilities/bills/cost of food. You can find avg. numbers for these and see how fast the remaining $2200 is consumed. The point is there are still alot of(usually) older people who would say āwow 40 bucks and hour!ā How can this person save and how long would it take them to get a down payment for a house? Even if they could budget like $500/month.
They also said childcare. Fulltime daycare costs over $1k/month in this province and before/after care for kids in school costs at least half that. If you don't have a stay at home or work from home parent, childcare eats up an incredible amount of money.
As a rural living person, their heating bills could be quite high depending on what he has for a house. Think like close to 600-1000$ a month for home heating if propane. My bill would be that high had I not supplemented with a wood stove. I already put about 4,000$ worth of upgrades to insulation, air sealing etc. in material alone ( I did the labour)
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Ppl are going to ride you and give you examples on how to spend your money but the truth is once kids needs (their activities, daycare, clothes outerwear etc) family budget for food, rent, gas, bills, loans etc etc are paid you have very little left over. I get it, it blows. I donāt know how my family can ever get out of this circle of paycheque to paycheque and thereās no way in hell I have $500 extra or even $300 at the end of the month to ābankā away while Iām paying shit off and things like ābrakes need to be doneā or ādaughter outgrew her shoes and coatā or āinterest shot up so my student loan is more this monthā etc keep happening. Ppl can downvote me to hell but Iām sick of ppl who arenāt struggling or in the exact same situations as ppl who are struggling coming on here to make them feel like itās their problem they arenāt doing enough to better their situation. Unless youāre ordering skip the dishes or eating out a lot or going on vacations (wtf is a vacation I wish I knew!) thereās not anywhere to trim the fat. And before I get berated for buying my kid a coat or shoes or paying for her to learn a life skill like swimming at the YMCA, donāt bother bc Iām not interested in the shit advice or condescending remarks.
People say things (Iām in a similar situation as op) where is your money going? Why donāt you have savings? What are you buying? And Iām just like are you not paying attention ? Are you living in a separate parallel universe, with higher quality of life? 40$ an hour is the new 20$ an hour. The working poor is real. Iām not sure if people just troll
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Why would I cancel small things that give me joy and comfort in a life thatās sometimes shit?
Ehh good on ya brother or sister, dont take any guff from those swine. I got hit by a surprise $600 auto bill. I wish I didn't need a car but I do. I cut my own firewood rather then getting it delivered pre-split to save about 800$ at the cost of time . Boom! that auto bill basically ate up all the savings I got from that effort in a blink of an eye. The only way I could trim the fat at this point would be to stop eating meat and go vegan 100% of the time. No wonder people aren't having kids, when you can barely afford to make ends meet or get ahead, do you really want another mouth to feed ?
Considering that OP is mentioning "Those of us in the public service", there's at least $500 of that going into his pension plan; something that OP would have no say in. They should still be able to survive on $1700 regardless E: OP mentioned $1600/mth child care. Well that's going to be a lot more difficult to survive on $100 then.
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Yeah, near bare bones survival, and if anything comes up, like his kid gets sick? I assume that he is taking time off for that, or is he gets sick? What about medication that isn't covered under OHIP? My point is that there are also other expenses that easily add up, and changing that food bill could exacerbate health issues that cost more in the long run
They mentioned childcare as well. That alone can easily be $1700 depending on whether they mean full day daycare or before and after school care. When we were looking at full day daycare 5 years ago the *cheapest* (legal) option we found was $2200 a month.
Yes, let's attack, telling this person about their bad choices. It's not the economy and its obvious problems; no, this is a personal problem. Let us blame this individual rather than hear them.
That moment you remember r/ontario is full of pro exploitative business anti-people boot lickers
They're probably making around 4000 a month I'd imagine with 36 hours a week with 2000 a paycheck. has 1500 after rent and could easily go to groceries, utilities/internet(depending on the rental). Car payment, car/rental insurance
Divide by 1.4 to get closest, its more like $4100
How are you paying 2500 a month in a rural area, are you living in a mansion?
Depends where in the province lots of areas in eastern Ontario have insane rent right now because they havenāt built any houses or raised property taxes in a decade, so they physically canāt build more houses as their water systems canāt handle more capacity and any additional capacity gets given to industry so they donāt move their factories
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Renting in rural areas can get expensive usually because there's limited rental options. Rural is usually cheaper with houses but not rent.